Daily Almanac

Today is Monday, Oct.?31, the 304th day of 2011. There are 61?days left in the year. This is Halloween.

Today is Monday, Oct.?31, the 304th day of 2011. There are 61?days left in the year. This is Halloween.

Highlights in History

• On Oct. 31, 1941, work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.

• In 1517, Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

• In 1926, magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.

• In 1961, the body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.

• In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.

• In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh security guards.

• In 1994, a Chicago-bound American Eagle ATR-72 crashed in northern Indiana, killing all 68 people aboard.

• In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.

• Ten years ago: New York hospital worker Kathy T. Nguyen died of inhalation anthrax, the fourth person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism.

• Five years ago: A fire at a residential hotel in Reno, Nev., killed 12 people.

• One year ago: A former teenage al-Qaida fighter, Omar Khadr, was sentenced by a military judge at Guantanamo to eight more years in custody under the terms of a plea agreement unsealed after a military sentencing jury said he should serve 40 years for war crimes.

Thought for Today

“Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral.” — Rosalind Russell, American actress (1911-76)